Thanks to Gramma Jean and Grandpa David…a wonderful week in Fort Walton Beach!
Category Archives: House & Home
Owen likes the accommodations.
Mullet backbones? Why not.
We stopped to eat a late lunch on the way home from the airport.
Gramma ordered mullet and the waitress asked if she wanted the gizzards and/or backbones. We all looked at her like WHAT? EWWWW. WHAT? But then we said what the hell, we’ll try the backbones (no fish gizzards, thankyouverymuch). And turns out they weren’t as scary as we thought…they were tasty!
Poor Maggie. I hope our next house has more sun.
Dinner and game night!
Tonight we combined our Saturday Night Dinner with our first Cards Against Humanity game night!
The game-winning combo. Phil won, beating Tom by one card! What a fun night…
Riding home from the playground
Since we live just around the corner she is allowed to sit in the passenger seat. 🙂
Finally! Duck Donuts!!
They were SOOOO yummy. We will be back.
Homemade marshmallows
A friend did these and I’ve always wanted to try them…so today was the day! Most recipes are about the same but Alton Brown’s was the one I was following.
My first time ever using a candy thermometer. (And truth be told it wasn’t actually a candy thermometer…but a wifi grilling thermometer works just as well.)
My chocolate-dipping (presentation) skills could definitely use some work but they still tasted delicious.
Lularoe ladybug twins
I just can’t even. Kiss & Ride is NOT hard.
Front lady is wasting like THREE spaces by not pulling forward. WHY?!?! I eventually pulled in front of her (directly behind that car to the very left that you can barely see). If you’re going to be stupid and waste that much space, you deserve to have someone pull in front of you. (Sidenote: she did the same damn thing the next day and I didn’t waste ANY time parking in front of her immediately upon arriving.)
This makes me smile more than it probably should.
A tired trip home
After the early morning and walking to the museum and around the museum and back to the car and a little Pokémoning, this happened on the way home.
She was fighting it.
And then this happened.
Uncle Rob wasn’t fighting it. But look at my little happy and wide-awake photo bomber!! 😀
Katie’s Frozen Cookies
Santa brought Katie a Frozen Cookie Mix kit so we had to do those IMMEDIATELY. The tiny snowflake pieces were a pain in the butt and they look like a total FAIL but they were delicious.
Santa & Grinch
Today’s happiness
A pair of unicorn LLR leggings with a matching lap warmer.
Bucket list lunch: complete
We lived in Troy for three years and I wanted to eat at Zingerman’s Deli the whole time but we just never got there. Today, since we were literally right down the street, it happened.
Linda and I split a large reuben and it was still too much (we should have split the small).
Then we sampled this $26/lb cheese and it was VERY tasty. I was sad I couldn’t take any food home…
I wish I could come back here because there were A LOT more sandwiches I wanted to try…
Post-Friendsgiving
We let the kids stay up for a bit after the excitement of the evening…
And then this happened. 🙂
Friendsgiving!
We had one of our Saturday Night Dinners for our Thanksgiving this year. We thought we’d keep it simple—we’d do a turkey, mashed potatoes, instant stuffing, fresh bread, and mulled cider; one couple was bringing a sweet potato casserole; and one couple was bringing dessert. Easy, right? Well holy hell it was still a lot of work. Last minute stuff, really, and not hard, but still craziness. Especially at the last minute when I realized I had completely forgotten to start the gravy! (At least I already had the stock ready so it didn’t take long at all.)
My very first use of a selfie stick!
I reached my limit today.
The amount of toys they have that they don’t play with is insane. I dumped out all the bins from the shelving unit and I’m making them pick out their favorite things and the rest is going away. (And this is just upstairs. Ugh.) Happy Thanksgiving?!
Early Sparkle: Stage 2, complete.
We’ve graduated away from oil!
We both love a good deep-fried turkey, but dealing with the huge amounts of oil is never fun. It was okay when we were doing a turkey once every other month or so (or once a month at times) back in Jacksonville, but nowadays…it was just too much. So Tom got a Char-Broil The Big Easy TRU-Infrared Oil-less Turkey Fryer. We had to do a test run before we hosted Thanksgiving, so the first one came out delicious…but the skin was NOT what I wanted at all (it was slightly crispy but very anemic looking). So we tried again, this time rubbing it with oil. And we got a much better result…
Proof I attacked the skin before dinner!
And then the prep to make stock for the gravy since I won’t have much drippings! (You actually get viable drippings from this fryer, but it was much easier to make the stock ahead of time.)
This Year I’m Decorating For Christmas Early, Because The World Needs Some Sparkle (Subtitled “Stage 1, complete.”)
After reading this article—This Year I’m Decorating For Christmas Early, Because The World Needs Some Sparkle—I decided I really wanted to put up our Christmas stuff just a bit early…and since Tom loves me, it actually happened. :heart:
Blue Apron Barramundi
We enjoy Hello Fresh now and again so we thought we’d also try Blue Apron. Our first dish was Seared Barramundi with Collard Greens, Fregola Sarda & Shallot Agrodolce (recipe here) and it was really delicious. It looked pretty, too!
PJ Twinsies
Owen picked his PJs and next I saw them, she had hers on, too. I’m glad they can still make me smile after being little poops all day.
YANJO: fall version
Lularoe leggings, two sweaters from Marshall’s, necklace from Chico’s (birthday present from Marcia!), and boots from Amazon. 🙂
Our new landscaping.
We’ve hated the front bushes ever since we moved in and we finally got rid of them! Everything else was old and overgrown, too, so we convinced our landlord to buy the new stuff if we removed the old and planted the new stuff. He was game…and especially thrilled about the end-of-season prices…so we now have a full front yard of sod and way too many trees and grasses (but we don’t care because we’ll be long gone by the time they get overgrown).
This is how I like to shop at Marshall’s.
I needed a few new cardigan sweaters…and since I recently passed up a $70 Lularoe version, I figured it was okay to get FIVE for about the same price as one. Right? 🙂
Katie wore this today so I decided we should match.
Well, technically she just had on the shirt and leggings. I added the boots and cardigan which I knew she also had. 🙂
I think we need a bigger oven…
Because Costco Take & Bake pizzas don’t fit. 🙂
And this is what happened when I tried to get the two halves into the oven. 🙁
So then I let this happen (she didn’t eat much because I think she thought she was going to get in trouble, even though I specifically called her over).
I managed to salvage the actual pizzas but from now on, I’m just cutting off a thin edge slice.
I got a red dress, y’all.
So about a month or so ago, I queried my Facebook friends to see if my favorite red ball gown could be altered…and pretty much everyone said no way, just buy a new dress, there’s no way to easily alter a size 24 into a 10/12. Fine. So I went shopping at David’s Bridal and crossed my fingers as I looked through the Clearance rack.
So they only had three dresses in my size(s): a red size 10, an identical black size 12, and a different style navy size 12. I was sure the 10 wouldn’t fit so started with the black one. It fit well enough but I felt there was enough wiggle room that I should at least TRY the size 10 (plus it was the only red one so why not?). And amazingly it fit…but it was literally 1/2″ too small across the back and was quite tight so I was sad. So I had to decide if I wanted the black dress (I’d never had a black dress!) or keep looking for a red one… Black is classic, but red is what I wanted.
They looked at other stores and told me the next closest store had the dress in red in a 12…GRRR. So I did what I do when I have a clothes question…I talked to my clothes buddy, Sheryl. She convinced me I should go get the red dress. So I went while Katie was at school. 🙂
They had a 10 so I tried it on again, just in case. And it was still tight, but they got it zipped fine. I was thinking I could actually live with it…until I noticed that the chest/back tightness made my armpit/boob fat squinch weird so I would have to get the 12. But, then I decided that since I was there and had the time I wanted to try on some VA VA VOOM dresses just to see what there was and if anything worked.
This red dress was not a winner.
This one was tempting, but I didn’t love it enough for the $229 price tag.
So I did end up getting the red dress…which I will post when we go to the ball! (Of course, after the fact I showed Tom both dresses and he said he liked the black one better. GRRRR!)